Brunch

Another Sunday is upon us, this has been a relatively uneventful week.  I did have my second near-death experience on the roads, I suppose.  The first one happened a couple weeks ago as I was driving back from Ali-al-Salem.  A flatbed truck carrying some sort of metallic shed structure merged onto the highway the next lane over and up ahead of me a bit.  I guess the driver forgot to secure the shed or maybe he tied it down with floss, because as soon as he started coming up to speed that thing slid off the flatbed and on to the highway.  I had to swerve a little bit (good thing I took the Army’s defensive driving course – don’t brake, just swerve) and got around it safely but I don’t think a car a couple back from me was as fortunate.  Today as I was merging on to the highway (and flooring it because you need to get up to speed quickly here) I noticed something up at the end of the merge that you typically don’t see in the U.S.: a car backing slowly up the on-ramp.  I don’t know what he was thinking, but it was so out-of-the-ordinary that it took me a beat to react, as if someone was giving directions in non sequiturs, but we made it around him safely and proceeded on our way.  The remains of a horrific crash were right next to our exit, a reminder of how crazy the people are on the roads.

One of the great joys of Sunday is brunch (breakfast and lunch combined!).  A lot of us look forward to it all week long.  Sunday is typically our slow day; people sleep in, go to Church, take long showers (known as a holiday shower on ships) and take it easy.  By far the highlight is brunch at the Zone 2 dining facility.  It is the furthest one away from where we are, but it is soooo worth it.  They have the normal lunch meal - anything from Salisbury steak to spaghetti - plus there is usually a roast turkey (once there was prime rib!), then there is breakfast with eggs made to order, French toast sticks (or Freedom sticks) and waffles made right there on the waffle iron just like at home.  Once that is all consumed there is ice cream and cake, the one day where we all dive into dessert.  One of my enterprising sailors invented Waffles Garcia – take the waffle, walk over to the ice cream bar and get the guy to load up a scoop or two on top, put on toppings and voila! a gastronomic delight.  It is such a great meal I don’t eat anything else all day long.  When we finish up we usually head over to the Zone 1 exchange (military for store) to window shop or pick up odds and ends we may need, get a coffee at the Green Beans and then head home.  Speaking of Green Beans http://www.greenbeanscoffee.com/ I am going to put in a plug for them over Starbucks.  They are major supporters of the military and have locations in many of the major overseas bases and FOBs (forward operating bases), in fact they pioneered the use of 20- and 40-foot containers with plug-and-play coffee shops inside, which is what you need at a lot of these remote places.  Tracy sent me a video of the two founders discussing some of their principles and difficulties they overcame: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuK1uX4KDmE

We spent a bunch of time starting to plan for our replacements.  Three separate groups of sailors will come in and relieve us.  There are two for Customs and then one for the Headquarters group, the staff that is in charge and runs training, logistics, intel, that sort of thing.  The first Customs wave hits Norfolk on Monday, heads to Ft Dix after that and then comes to Kuwait to relieve about half of my company as well as others.  As they are on their way here, the second Customs wave starts through the meat grinder and they arrive at about the same time as the Headquarters replacements.  There is a whole intricate series of things that needs to be thought about and planned for ranging from where these folks will stay to how long it will take to train them and get them ready to replace existing sailors.  Then we have to figure out how to get the group that is replaced out of here efficiently.  In the past the Warrior Transition Program, the interim step for troops leaving Iraq and Afghanistan, was located right here in Kuwait so the logistics of getting sailors out was pretty straightforward.  It shifted to Germany in December, which could have been a pain in the neck as there is all this equipment we have to turn in before we go home, but the HQ folks have figured out a way for everyone to turn in the equipment HERE and not Germany, which is terrific.

We are in a pretty neat transitional weather period now.  The “winter” season is just about over and we are entering what the locals call the sarayat season as the weather starts to heat up.  For the next couple months there will be an occasional massive thunderstorm, something we had last night.  I was already asleep when I heard the Giant Voice system (the same one that plays reveille and Patton’s theme every freaking morning) warn about lightning strikes, and then I could hear the booming of thunder and pounding of rain on the roof.  After a storm passes it is often followed by winds and dust, and that is what we have now.  On the bright side this random weather makes for some very cool skies, below is a picture I took this week one afternoon.  If you look closely over the pipe sticking up over the right corner of the white building you may see a very small rainbow.

Patrick got his palate extender out and braces put on his top teeth, this is how he feels about it.